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The Clapper Review: How to Fire 90% of SysAdmins?

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emptywheel
Yesterday, I noted it took just 72 hours from Obama to turn an "independent" "outside" review of the government's SIGINT programs into the James Clapper Review of James Clapper's SIGINT Programs. But many other commenters have focused on…
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Domestic Terrorists and the Dragnet Database

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emptywheel
This is the first reference to actual alleged terrorists in the Administration's White Paper on the Section 215 metadata dragnet (there's one earlier reference to counterterrorism). This telephony metadata is important to the Government because,…
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Working Thread, Section 215 White Paper

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emptywheel
I've already had some things to say about the White Paper the Administration released on its metadata dragnet program and will have several more formal posts. But I wanted to capture all my notes in one place. Page 1: telecommunications…
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Mike Rogers Says 4 Briefings Recently Makes Up for Withholding Information before PATRIOT Act Vote

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emptywheel
Here's House Intelligence Chair Mike Rogers' response to the White Paper's revelation, backed by Justin Amash's reports, that he didn't invite all members of the House to read notice of the Section 215 dragnet. The House Intelligence Committee…
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This Independent Technical Review Group Brought to You By the Booz Allen Hamilton Director of National Intelligence™

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emptywheel
When Obama announced Friday the formation of a technical advisory group to review our SIGINT programs, I naively believed "outside" and "independent" meant "outside" and "independent." Fourth, we’re forming a high-level group of outside experts…
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65 2010 House Freshmen Re-Authorized PATRIOT with No Notice of Section 215 Dragnet

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emptywheel
The White Paper claims that the Section 215 dragnet is legal, in large part, because Congress has twice extended the PATRIOT Act without changing the terms of Section 215. A key of part that argument rests on the Administration's claim that…
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Stop and Frisk STOPPED! [Updated]

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bmaz
[Note Update below] In a rather remarkable decision just handed down by Judge Shira Scheindlin in the Southern District of New York (SDNY), has found New York City's insidious stop and frisk policy violative of citizen's basic Constitutional…
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Drone Strikes in Yemen Are Very Effective -- For AQAP Recruitment

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Jim White
Marcy has been all over the current episode of security theater surrounding the latest al Qaeda "conference call" that led to the closure of many US embassies, but I want to focus on news reports that have come out over the last month or so…
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NBC News Hires Edison Carter and Blank Reg For Big Time TV

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bmaz
NBC News, showing it can move 20 minutes into the future, has made a new and exciting digital acquisition. From Brian Stelter (who was a great replacement for Howard Kurtz today on CNN's "Reliable Sources". Seriously) at the New York Times: When…
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The White Paper's Selective Forgetting on FCC Phone Record Retention History

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emptywheel
In two different places, the White Paper justifying the Section 215 dragnet discusses the FCC's requirements that telecoms retain phone records. First, without describing what current requirements are or where they came from, it claims current…
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Mike Rogers' Double Secret Invitation to Dance

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emptywheel
I'm working on a very weedy post on the White Paper's duplicitous presentation of what it calls support for Congress for the Section 215 dragnet. But I'd like to compare a claim from this WaPo story on how secrecy makes it difficult for Congress…
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Dictionary Arbitrage and Section 215: "Relevant"

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emptywheel
There's an odd footnote in the White Paper the Administration released to justify its Section 215 dragnet. 3 The word “tangible” can be used in some contexts to connote not only tactile objects like pieces of paper, but also any other things…
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Is This Why Banksters Don't Go to Jail for Laundering Terrorist Finances?

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emptywheel
I'm in the middle of a deep dive in the Section 215 White Paper -- expect plenty of analysis on it in coming attractions! But I want to make a discrete point about this passage, which describes what happen to query results. Results of authorized…
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Shon Hopwood, Stephen Glass and Second Chances in America

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bmaz
Say what you will about District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Janice Rogers Brown, and much has indeed been said by both sides of the ideological divide, but she has done something truly remarkable and admirable. Brown has accepted…
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Obama's Credibility Trap

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emptywheel
President Obama just stood before the nation and said, And if you look at the reports -- even the disclosures that Mr. Snowden has put forward -- all the stories that have been written, what you're not reading about is the government actually…
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BREAKING! Information "is collected" on millions of Americans

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emptywheel
[youtube]HIcJ_QFSuUU[/youtube] Obama just gave a press conference to announce some changes to FISA. They include four things: Making some changes to the dragnet program Appointing a privacy officer to do for NSA what DOJ's IG has done…
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NSA-Speak -- Timely: (Adj.) 2-Month Delay

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emptywheel
For some reason, this Ellen Nakashima story covering parts of what CNN, Wired, and I have already reported is generating a lot of attention today. While I'm grateful that more people are catching on to what I've been harping on for months…
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Did NSA Interpret Adverse FISC Fourth Amendment Ruling as Permission to Search American Contacts?

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emptywheel
Finally! The backdoor! The Guardian today confirms what Ron Wyden and, before him, Russ Feingold have warned about for years. In a glossary updated in June 2012, the NSA claims that minimization rules "approved" on October 3, 2011 "now allow…
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Virginia Doesn't Want Detroit to Get Convention Dollars

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emptywheel
About 14 months ago, I was at Netroots Nation in Providence, RI. RI has, like MI, been really battered by the Great Recession. Nevertheless, we had just seen Providence's glorious WaterFire installment. And I had spent lots of time talking to…
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Count Von Count Drones Yemen

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emptywheel
[youtube]L5bqMDGWXO8[/youtube] The flurry of drone strikes in Yemen has gotten so difficult to keep up with that I imagine a twisted version of Count Von Count leading counting lessons after each one. As of last count, he'd be up to the…
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